Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hanks and More Celebrities React to John McCain’s Passing

Born in 1936, McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 and went into the U.S. Navy, where he became a naval aviator and flew aircraft carriers. In 1967, while he was flying a mission over Hanoi during the Vietnam War, his plane was shot down and he was captured by the North Vietnamese. He was held as a prisoner of war until his release 1973.

In the early '80s, McCain retired from the Navy and moved to Arizona to pursue a career in politics. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, and just five years later, in 1987, entered the U.S. Senate, where he served as a senator for three decades. He ran for president twice: once against George W. Bush in the Republican primary election in 2000, and again against Barack Obama as the Republican nominee in 2008.

McCain was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in July 2017. On August 24, 2018, McCain's family announced that the senator would no longer receive treatment. He died the next day at his home in Cornville, Arizona.

The largely conservative Republican senator was referred to as a "maverick" for sometimes opposing or voting against his party's stands, often prioritizing bipartisan cooperation and for clashing with Trump.